Posts by Joe Wylie

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  • Hard News: Trading Trade Me?,

    . . . eccentric warehouse filled with monumental components that drive city infrastructure, such as huge transformers, pumps and heavy-duty other really grunty things that look like they came from under the road . . .

    Sounds like the bastard who caused the blackout of '98.

    flat earth • Since Jan 2007 • 4593 posts Report

  • Hard News: Trading Trade Me?,

    Whenever I am selling something collectable it goes on ebay US without a thought.

    What I meant to add, is that TradeMe is often full of cheap-ass tyre kickers.
    ebay is where the real buyers are at.

    I'm sure you're right, but I was very pleasantly surprised at what TradeMe's "cheap-ass tyre kickers" were prepared to bid for a couple of WWII vintage Fun Ho! toys that I happened to have lying around.

    flat earth • Since Jan 2007 • 4593 posts Report

  • Speaker: ReEntry,

    I know those Australia sweet potatoes - regret that I never learned to cook them properly, but they're nothing like kumara. Locally grown kumara appeared in Sydney in the late 90s. They were pretty good, but pricey.

    First encountered what's probably the veg that Simon described in Bangkok in the mid-70s. Nicely bite-sized kumara, steamed and sold hot in a newspaper cone, but definitely kumara.

    flat earth • Since Jan 2007 • 4593 posts Report

  • Speaker: ReEntry,

    Skill and grace, eh? Nicely said, Sacha. Surely university English departments were every bit as vital as 'real world' venues such as the former Listener in growing the emergent 'canon'.

    Of course there are lazy and complacent academics, but isn't 'bashed over the head' a little rich? A true story from not so long ago: a lecturer comes in to take a class during a staff strike. They spend the first few minutes explaining that they support the aims of the industrial action, but it's a vital lecture and they don't want the students falling behind. They know they won't be paid. Skill and grace.

    Around three months later they're made redundant, just a few years short of their retirement. So what if every tutorial they took had to move to a bigger venue because of higher than anticipated enrolments, if the bean counters don't like the cut of your jib you're done for. When you're of a certain age and gender these things happen, no matter how dedicated you've been.

    Like the Listener, English departments are now mere shadows of what they were, and their decline has taken place over pretty much the same time-frame. It's our language, FFS, and while linguistics is just dandy, it's no substitute. For those survivors who keep the faith, and for those who maintained their integrity in the face of some of most venal managerial undermining and backstabbing imaginable, respect.

    flat earth • Since Jan 2007 • 4593 posts Report

  • Hard News: It's not OK to just make…,

    Maybe the echo chamber is reaching its logical conclusion and they're all going to disappear up some fundamental flag-draped orifice.

    Camels through the needle's eye? Don't forget the famous Limbaugh nether-orifice cyst.

    flat earth • Since Jan 2007 • 4593 posts Report

  • Hard News: Reasons to be cheerful,

    I used to have a mate that would toss empty beer cans over the roof of the car from the drivers seat as he meandered to or from anywhere he happened to be.
    I anybody and I mean anybody, who dared to attempt to chastise him for this behaviour he would berate them for denying small furry animals the right to a modern home.

    The downside of providing hi-tech help to small animals. Click to enlarge.

    flat earth • Since Jan 2007 • 4593 posts Report

  • Hard News: It's not OK to just make…,

    Or am i a racist bigot?

    (Yawn). If you must know, as far as I'm concerned you're a rather tedious non-event. I'm sure it's mutual. Nothing personal.

    flat earth • Since Jan 2007 • 4593 posts Report

  • Hard News: It's not OK to just make…,

    I've asked Bird - perfectly politely - to define what he meant by "slut". My request was ignored. I believe that indulging someone who habitually uses the term "feminazi" elsewhere, and smarmily moderates his language at PA, is an exercise bordering on intellectual vanity.

    In the unlikely event that Bird were to read The Handmaid's Tale he'd find it to be a blueprint for the kind of repressive society he fantasises about. If the old attention slut had the courage to speak plainly of his bigotry I might accord him a touch of respect. He doesn't, so I don't.

    flat earth • Since Jan 2007 • 4593 posts Report

  • Hard News: It's not OK to just make…,

    Went right over my head Mark.

    flat earth • Since Jan 2007 • 4593 posts Report

  • Hard News: It's not OK to just make…,

    Sure what Chuck is saying is erroneous, and misguided . . .

    Attention slut. Bit of a shrew, too.

    flat earth • Since Jan 2007 • 4593 posts Report

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